US warplanes pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah yesterday, a day after the city's leaders suspended peace talks and rejected the Iraqi government's demands to turn over terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Fallujah clerics insisted al-Zarqawi was not in the city and called for civil disobedience across Iraq if the Americans try to overrun the insurgent bastion. If civil disobedience won't stop the attack, clerics said they would proclaim a holy war against multinational forces "as well as those collaborating with them."
Al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group has claimed responsibility for Thursday's twin bombings inside Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone -- home to US officials and the Iraqi leadership -- which killed six people, including three American civilians. A fourth American was missing and presumed dead.
Two Iraqis were killed, at least one of them a suicide bomber. The identity of the other wasn't known. The group's claim, which could not be verified, was posted on a Web site known for its Islamic contents.
Thursday's bold, unprecedented attack, which witnesses and a senior Iraqi official said was carried out by suicide bombers, dramatized the militants' ability to penetrate the heart of the US-Iraqi leadership even as authorities step up military operations to suppress Sunni Muslim insurgents in other parts of the country.
Jets and artillery hammered Fallujah through the night in an apparent effort to quash terrorists suspected of planning attacks timed with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began yesterday.
Witnesses said that US troops have detained Khaled al-Jumeili, a cleric who led the city's delegates in peace negotiations with the government. They said he was arrested as he left a mosque after the Friday prayers in a village about 15km south of Fallujah.
Another man, Ahmed al-Janabi, also was arrested but was freed soon afterwards.
Iraqi leaders have been in negotiations to restore government control to Fallujah, which fell under the domination of clerics and their armed mujahedeen followers after the end of the three-week Marine siege last April.
Allawi warned Wednesday that Fallujah must surrender al-Zarqawi and other foreign fighters or face military action. Talks broke down Thursday when city representatives rejected the "impossible condition."
The US believes al-Zarqawi and his terrorist group are headquartered in Fallujah. Last year, the Ramadan period saw a surge in violence.
During Friday sermons in Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere, preachers read a statement from Fallujah clerics declaring that al-Zarqawi's presence "is a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie."
"Al-Zarqawi has become the pretext for flattening civilians houses and killing innocent civilians," the statement said.
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